Billionaire In Training – moving levels

This is an transcription excerpt from an interview with Brad Sugars, multi-millionaire businessman. I liked this portion of the interview, because it explains how to break out of the self-employed level of a business, especially the text highlighted in yellow below. – Mark Fregnan, Kinetic Media & Marketing.

Peter Sinclair: Now Brad, in your brilliant book “Billionaire In Training” you take us through from Level 0 right up to Level 5 as you unveil the key characteristics of a true entrepreneur. Can you briefly outline those 6 categories?

Brad Sugars: OK. The “Billionaire in Training” Level 0 is the employee. It’s where you should start. This is where you should gain both capital and knowledge. Having many different jobs is a great start for an entrepreneur.

Peter Sinclair: We all need to start somewhere.

Brad Sugars: Yes. Level 1 is where you move up to becoming self-employed. This is the most important step. It is also the toughest. Here you have to learn so much. I hope people are prepared to take my advice and have a lot of jobs in a lot of fields when they first start. That way they will generally have less to learn.

Peter Sinclair: What you are promoting at this level is a good general spread of knowledge and experience.

Brad Sugars: Precisely. Level 2 is the “Manager Level.” This is where you start employing people. It is still tough because you need to learn about people and not just the basics of running a business. I think at this point, I should give my definition of a business. It’s a commercial, profitable enterprise that works without you being there.

Peter Sinclair: That in itself is a very important characteristic. The most successful businesses should be able to operate without the owner having to be there one hundred percent of the time.

Brad Sugars: Correct. Level 3 occurs when you reach the situation that you just mentioned Peter. You become a “Business Owner.” You have systems, a team and a General Manager to run it all for you. Essentially you have reached passive income by this stage.

Peter Sinclair: I just want to take a quick look at self-employment. Can I just take you back to Level 1 for a moment?

Brad Sugars: Go right ahead.

Peter Sinclair: For someone to break out of the boundaries of self-employment into a higher level, in what you call “the entrepreneurial game,” what would be some keys that you could suggest that could help somebody to progress?

Brad Sugars: Level 1 is like a see-saw. You have to chase the work in sales and then do the work, the operations. To progress to Level 2, first start with the fundamentals of growing a business. You need to create a vision, a mission statement, a company culture, goals and then an organization chart. Employ someone to take over the most basic functions first, but not before:

1 – you have written down how to do their job – exactly, and

2 – you can afford half their wage before they start.

Peter Sinclair: Brad, if our readers wanted to fast track through those levels, from your experience, how would you suggest they could do so?

Brad Sugars: Progressing through the levels quickly is all about gaining knowledge. Someone who doesn’t learn from their mistakes will either stay where they are or go backwards.

Peter Sinclair: Touché! You say that profit is KING. That’s pretty self explanatory, but can you add to that?

Brad Sugars: Peter, it’s not your mistakes that cost you a fortune, it’s actually the unwillingness to make mistakes, then learn from them. Too many business-owners focus on their total revenue or how many employees they have or how many offices they have opened. Really there is only one thing that counts in business…